Copyright 1989, 1990 Michael DeCorte This file documents how you should probably manage your archive-server. It should probably be given to all people who will help you maintain your archive. The archive-server is a program that automatically responds to mail sent to it. Hopefully it has been installed correctly and all you have to know do is maintain the file system and keep track of bounced mail. THE FILE SYSTEM: Someplace on your computer your archive manager has established an area where files are to be kept for public access. I will assume this is ~ftp/pub but it doesn't have to be there. The archive-server keeps only one type of file the "Index". A file called "Index" should be placed in every directory in ~ftp/pub (yes that means recursively). It can be of any format but it is typically reverse chronological so that users can quickly see is new. If you would like to automate the creation of "Index" files you should take a look at "daily.sh" a typical entry for your crontab. "daily.sh" calls "updateindex.sh". "updateindex.sh" takes one argument a directory and creates for that directory an "Index" file. If there is currently an "Index" file in that directory the header of that file will be preserved. The header is defined as everything that precedes the first line of hyphens. See the "Index" file that came with the archive-server for an example. If a directory does not contain an Index file but someone asks for one they will be sent one that is basically the output of "updateindex.sh" but this is a waste of CPU if many people ask for that Index file as it is recreated every time. In addition to the official file "Index" there is an unofficial file "Description". The archive-server knows nothing of this file but it is used because of convention and it usefulness. The "Description" file should contain a alphabetic listing of all the files (or file groups) in any one directory with a brief description of it. It lets people just browse around the archive-server and decide what they want. Although you can nest directories as deeply as you like I suggest that you try to keep everything sort of flat. ~ftp/pub should only contain an Index file and directories; each directory should contain 1 logical package. If you have a very large archive you may want to subdivide the archives (say operating system) and place all of the archives in these subdirectories. I would not suggest that you place archives any deeper as it makes the archive harder for the user to browse around. I also suggest that you list ALL of the archives in ~ftp/pub/Index. BOUNCES: Although I have tried very hard to relieve you of this duity I can not take it away until everyone in this world fixes their mailer. That is a fairly tall order so expect to see some bounces. I have found that about 1-2% of the mail bounces so it is not to bad (but Clarkson gets about 20000 messages a year so....) You will get almost all of your bounces sent to archive-mailer. A few will come in through archive-server but only because there are broken mailers in this world. In all of your bounces you should notice that the "In-Reply-To:" field contains a file name like "done.1234" this is the file that was sent to the archive-server by the user. This usually contains all the information you need to figure out what went wrong. Normally it is because the "From" field was wrong. I have found that the best method of dealing with bounces is to mail back to the user a VERY short message that indicates that the path command must be used and what it should be.